The A-Z of PPC and Online Marketing Terms (A-C).
That’s why the Internet Marketing Team felt it important to provide a glossary of acronyms and terminology so you can stay in the loop. The industry is constantly changing and we aim to keep this list up to date along with those changes.
A-C
Ad Delivery – This term refers to the speed at which you set Google to use your advertising budget. This can be spread across the day (standard) or spent quickly (accelerated). The setting determines when your ads will display during the day particularly if using a limited budget campaign.
Ad Extensions – Additional information or incentives placed within an ad that increases the chances of your ad being clicked on by a user. This can be contact info, website links, or product specific information.
Ad Group – Your account is organised using sets of keywords, ads and bids. A campaign comprises of one or more ad groups and each one of those groups will usually contain 5-10 keywords.
Ad Position – Where you ad appears in relation to other paid ads. If you’re ad is in position ‘1’ then it is the first ad on the page. Note: this doesn’t necessarily mean position one in organic results and you can be at the top within the side of the results.
Ad Rank – This is a value calculated as the product of your bid and Quality Score and is used to determine ad position in the back-end.
Ad Rotation – When multiple ads are active, this setting determines which ad within your ad group to display. Preferences include: Optimise for Clicks, Optimise for Conversion, Rotate Evenly (90 days) and Rotate Indefinitely. Ad Rotation provides a way of checking that the balance is right between testing and performance of your account.
Ad Scheduling – Controls what hour and day you want your ads appearing and targets periods of time when you expect your ads to be successful. Can automatically adjust bids within time periods (known as Day Parting).
Ad Status – Describes an ad’s ability to run and if there are policy restrictions on when or how it can run. Statuses include: Under Review, Eligible, Approved etc.
AdSense – Google’s product for website owners so they can monitise their site by displaying relevant Display Network ads.
Advertising Policies – The fundamental guidelines for ads, keywords and websites. Violation of these policies will prevent ads from running.
AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) – A testing ground for changes to user accounts on a portion of the auctions that ads participate in. ACEs can test new keywords, bids, placements etc.
AdWords Editor – Google’s free software to make bulk changes to a user account allowing for new campaigns, ad groups, keywords, bid changes etc.
AdWords Labels – A way to organise elements into groups for more efficient reporting. Labels can be applied to keywords, campaigns, ad groups, and ads.
Analytics Content Experiments – Once known as Website Optimiser. A built-in Analytics tool for setting up A/B multivariate tests for landing pages to determine how changes affect user behaviour. A good way to make improvements to conversion rates.
Application Program Interface (API) – An application that interacts with one or multiple servers.
Audiences – When customers are targeted with PPC ads they are referred to as audiences. The term can also be used for a group of users who visit or complete an action on one or multiple pages of a website. These audiences are then included on lists to help improve Display Network and Remarketing. Audiences are used to define which customers to target with PPC ads.
Automated Rules – An automatic feature that adjusts ad statuses, budgets, and bids saving time spent monitoring campaigns manually. These rules can be customised to individual goals and KPIs.
Automative Bidding – An automatic systems for CPC bidding with limits to prevent exceeding a set price per click. The aim is to get the most possible clicks within a set budget.
Automative Placements – Display Network locations or domains where ads can show. These are matched automatically to keywords and other methods of targeting.
Auto Tagging – An AdWords feature that allows tracking of ad performance by appending code to destination URLs.
Average Cost-Per-Click (Avg. CPC) – This is the average amount charged when a user clicks on an ad. It is calculated by dividing total cost of clicks by total number of clicks.
Average Position – How an ad is positioned on search results pages.
Bid – The maximum amount willing to be paid for a search keyword click.
Bidding Types – Keywords can be bid on depending on the needs of a business. The three main types are: focus on clicks (CPC), impressions (CPM), or conversions (CPA).
Bing Ads – Pay-per-click advertising service on Bing and Yahoo! search platforms.
Bing Ads Editor – A tool to help offline account management including bulk changes. Currently only available for Windows O/S.
Bing Campaign Analytics – A tool for tracking ad performance (similar to Google Analytics).
Bidding Software – A tool for controlling bids automatically and useful for consolidating multiple advertising channels. Also useful for optimising larger PPC accounts.
Bounce Rate– The percentage of users who enter a website but leave without visiting another page.
Broad Match – The default setting to indicate if an ad displays when a search term contains a keyword term in any order. A useful choice for accounts that don’t want to spend time building keyword lists but do want to capture high volumes of ad traffic.
Broad Match Modifier (BMM) – Broad match keywords can have a modifier (plus sign +) for ads to show when a user searches for a close variant of a keyword such as singular/plural version, abbreviations, misspellings and acronyms. This adds an additional level of control and a useful choice to increase relevancy.
Call Extensions – A feature to add Google forwarding or phone numbers on a PPC ad.
Campaign – A set of ad groups (ads, keywords and bids) that share budget, location targeting and other settings. An account can have one or multiple ad campaigns.
Change History – A list of account changes made in the past two years such as bid adjustments, status changes, keyword additions etc. Useful for filtering changes on specific dates or data range.
Click – A register when a user has clicked on a search or Display Network ad.
Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Measures the results of PPC advertising. The number of users who click on an ad by the number of impressions determines the CTR.
Click-to-Call – See Call Extensions.
Client ID – A 10-digit number to identify a specific Google account.
Contextual Targeting – A Display Network feature that matches ads to relevant sites using keywords/topics.
Conversion – An action carried out by a website visitor such as making a purchase or completing a form.
Conversion Optimiser – Known also as CPA bidding: uses historical to predict valuable clicks then adjusts bids to help maximise conversions.
Conversion Rate – The rate at which a click on an ad results in a conversion or action. The formula is conversions divided by clicks.
Cookies – A small file left on a user’s computer that provides preferences and information from previous search history. Used by search engines to track conversions and build audiences for remarketing lists.
Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – How much an advertiser pays for a single click on an ad which brings a visitor to their website.
Cost-Per-Lead (CPL) / Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) – Refers to the amount an advertiser pays for a lead generated by its ad.
Cost-Per-Phone Call (CPP) – The maximum an advertiser is willing to pay for a phone call generated from a call extension.
Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM) – The cost incurred for every one thousand impressions, or views, of an ad. Feature only available on Display Network.
Cost-Per-View (CPV) – The bidding option for users to pay each time a video is played.
Cost-Per-View (CPV) – Used with TrueView video campaigns, this is a bidding option that allows users to pay each time your video is played.
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) – Determines the effectiveness of any calls to action on the site such as signing up to a newsletter.
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